


To Death

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Fills plot hole(s), Characters - New interpretation, Characters - Outstanding OC(s), General, Plot - Bittersweet, Plot - Can't stop reading, Subjects - Culture(s), Subjects - Legends/Myth/History, War of the Ring, Writing - Clear prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2004-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3759089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is the soul of the Haradrim? Inspired by an illuminating passage in Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit (in The Two Towers), in which Sam sees a fallen warrior of Harad and wonders about him, I wrote this short tale. It is centered around a young man of Harad and the external and internal conflicts that shape who he is. <br/>The story will hopefully cast light on a people who were truly not “enemies” and “evil” but really Children of Ilúvatar, just as innately good, noble, and human as, say, Gondorians or Rohirrim. It also focuses on their long years of oppression by the malice of Sauron and his Orcs, and hopes to demonstrate the themes of unity and common humanity that Tolkien presented in his writing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

_Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering bank, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword._

_It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home._

—The Two Towers, 317

***

How does one know something is a lie, and with that knowledge, believe the lie? How does one consciously deceive oneself? I do not think any man has that power. But we try nonetheless, for it is not so much the Orcs’ lies as their blades that bite us and drive us to war.

_Don’t fall into their hands,_ they would say, grinning and sucking their decaying tongues with malicious joy. _They are crueler than us,_ they would say, hissing through jagged grimy teeth. _They will burn you alive,_ they would say, savoring every word. _But their lands will be yours. Bountiful, green lands where water isn’t scarce. Their wealth and cities and women will be yours._ They would say. Not one month ago they carried off young Djima rala Hware and her young cousin. Carried off to the factories of Nurn to labor in sweat and grime and sorrow. Her brother resisted and slew three of their kind. He was shouting and crying. They killed him immediately and left his body sprawled across the earth. The image still flickers violently before my eyes: red blood pooling together with black on the sands, the sun burning bright and hot in my pounding head, the terrified eyes of the children huddled around his unrecognizable corpse. _Their lands will be yours. Green hills and rushing streams._ They would say. Is this the freedom they would give us?

_Ha fasa!_ comes the shout from the front of the column, shaking me back into the moment. _Ha fasa!_ is the response from a hundred parched throats of my brothers and fathers. _Ha fasa!_ To death. Death is not the end, it is not the destination; it is our way of life. I see it chiseled into the faces of my warrior brethren, and remember it deeply set within the eyes of the children and the elders around the fire. Death is our way of life. Sadness, letting go, and through this, strength and solidity—this is my people.

We are the mûmak people. Old as mountains, tired as dying men, strong and hard as the hides of the great creatures we share our lives with. Marching forward eternally without purpose or guidance, driven onwards by the pounding whips of so many that would master us. Our hearts as huge and heavy and tired as the great mûmaks we now ride to war.

_Ha fasa!_ To death! Sweat drenches my face. It has been months since we departed, and we have almost arrived at our destination. I know not where we go, only that we must. The footsteps of the mûmak shake the earth and pound within my body, echoing throughout its caverns to the tattoo of my heartbeat. We have almost arrived, they tell us. We are nearly there.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is the soul of the Haradrim? Inspired by an illuminating passage in Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit (in The Two Towers), in which Sam sees a fallen warrior of Harad and wonders about him, I wrote this short tale. It is centered around a young man of Harad and the external and internal conflicts that shape who he is.

_Their lands will be yours._ But do we want them? I love the dunes and the _saku_ trees and the cool shade of the tents. I love the smell of curried _yaro_ roots roasting in the big clay pot. I love what little we know of life, the little we know of joy. I want nothing else.

The Orcs let us alone the night before we departed. A great fire was built and an antelope was roasted. We sat around the fire, all of us, warriors and grandmothers, children and young women. Singing the songs they forbade us to sing, the songs that are whispered furtively from mothers to their babes. Telling the tales they forbade us to tell, the tales that come from dreams, of ancient days of peace and freedom and life. Smiling in a way that their very presence forbade, for that night we knew life. Watching the smoke rise with our voices towards the stars as we whispered words of hope to the ancestors.

_You will have it all—their wealth, their power, their women._ But is that what we want? Kalira braided my hair that night. Her lips were full, curved into the most beautiful of smiles, equally laden with sorrow and hope. She wove stones and carved wood and rings of gold into my hair so smoothly, so gently, with the silence between us more full than any words. Her eyes as deep and calm and tired as all of our peoples’, shining in the flickering light of the fire. Life and death were in her hands as their movements stroked my head, weaving loose fibers into braids strong and thick.

_Ha fasa!_ Death called me away from Kalira that night. The moon was beginning to sink over the mountains far away, and the fire had faded to crackling embers. Our mothers brought forth our armor and our fathers geared us in it. Tears were in every eye. I looked into these sad and gleaming stars, set in the faces of my people. My people. A great family huddled around a dying fire, holding each other close in the cold darkness of the night. Cloaks as red as the blood in rushing through our hearts, not the foul black of the Orcs’ venom. Faces as brown and beautiful as the bark of the saku trees, and the clay of our bowls, and the good earth beneath our feet—not the cruel metallic brown of the Orcs’ rusted blades. Voices as pure and flowing as the smoke dancing upwards from the fire, not harsh and deceitful like the Orcs’ hideous threats. My people. Every bead in every braid framing every face seemed to be alive that night. The ancestors were alive that night, whispering to us in the voices of the elders. My people.

_Ha fasa!_ And now it was my turn to don my armor and leave for war. My mother raised the ancient plate. My father had borne it, and his father before him, and his father before him, stretching back to a time forgotten. It was old, yet strong as mountains. An age-old hide, overlaid with scales of tarnished bronze. But the hide itself was tougher than any metal, and far older. For once it had been the raiment of a mûmak, a deathless one who walked the earth for countless lives of men, and it had defended him from every pain and whip. Nothing could pierce this hide. It would never falter, it would never break.

_Ha fasa!_ My father smiled proudly through tears as he set the armor around my shoulders. What was he proud of? That his son would go and die where he did not? Or that his son yet lived? Women were chanting, their voices warbling with emotion. Drum song rose on the air. Brown hands beating on brown leather hides, filling the night with thundering heartbeats. _Ha fasa!_ To death we set off, bidding farewell to our world, with our heads upright and our hearts crushed. Every smile and tear and love and dream began to fade as the boom of the mûmak’s footsteps drew us steadily away from the tents of our home. We have come far now. We are not so far away. And again the cry rings out, and is answered by a hundred weary men. _Ha fasa!_ To death.


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is the soul of the Haradrim? Inspired by an illuminating passage in Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit (in The Two Towers), in which Sam sees a fallen warrior of Harad and wonders about him, I wrote this short tale. It is centered around a young man of Harad and the external and internal conflicts that shape who he is.

We have come to a strange land. For a long time we have been journeying through it. Dunes have given way to hills, shrubs to trees, sand to moss. It grows cold for us, we who have always lived in lands warmed by a bright and nearby Sun.

The Sun is high in the cloudless blue sky above. Yemanja has wrapped cloth around his head to keep out the cold and sits with his arms wrapped tightly around his body. Riliru is asleep, his youthful, boyish face troubled in dreams. Lamiri sits tall and alert in the front of the mûmak tower, eyes focused on every movement. We can feel the slow, continual, solid breathing of the beast whose back we ride. Its great, ancient heart pumps slowly with its pounding feet like huge trees drumming primeval rhythms. Why have we come here? I see doubt and uncertainty welling in the sad eyes of my brethren. What has brought us here? Could we have resisted the Orcs? Could we have prevented this?

I never have time to answer my own question. The steadiness is broken, the slow and constant rhythm has gone wild and rapid. Lamiri is screaming frenzied orders. We are under attack. Enemy arrows whiz through the air like a cloud of green hornets. The mûmak has gone mad, pricked with a thousand darts, and he is tramping riotously through the brush, no sense of direction, no sense of what to do but run. Yemanja, ever brave and ever quick, stands up to shoot at our hidden attackers, but he falls, his cloth-wrapped head pierced with a green-feathered bolt. Green feathers fly and green trees wheel around, blurring crazily into a mad dance. We are out of control.

I stand up, screaming, mad, wild, filled with the terror of long years of oppression, my blade whipped out glittering, my soul quiet and afraid, a burning flaming pain filling my chest. I am pierced by an arrow. The mûmak hide, unbreakable, is now broken. This ancient giant, standing astride the sandy deserts like a radiant monolith from the deeps of time, has been toppled. Death has come at last.

Now all steadiness crumbles and I fall. I cannot tell if it is I, or the mûmak, that now crashes down like a great tower leveled to dust. The unyielding armor has been pierced, the infinitely strong and old has been breached. I fall with the mûmak, I fall with my brothers, I fall with all I know down, down, down into a chasm dark and gaping.

But not all is fallen. The earth will receive me. The earth will not fall or crumble or go crashing down. I am fallen but the brown soil has caught me. Ferns cushion my head. Blood, warm and fluid, drenches my chest and hair and the earth takes it in like rain. My spinning head slows and my drumming heart slows as my blood drains into the receiving soil. The wrathful conflict raging around me slows and quiets down into nothing. Shouts of _Ha fasa!_ and screams to death recede into the sky.

Green is the arrow lodged in my heart, a green shaft plucked from a green tree, now resting with me amidst the green ferns. Black is my hand sleeping on the cool black soil. Red is the blood of vibrant humanity that spills from my wounds and mingles with the red dye of my cloak and the red inside my eyes as they slowly close, staring into the Sun. And now I go to death. Up, up, up, I go, my blood and body now fully drained into the soil to make it rich and strong. Up, up, up, I go, never to crumble, never to fall, never to crash down again, for I now need nothing to hold me up. Up, up, up, to where the ancient dreams and songs of life are no longer clouded. I go. I am almost there. Up, up, up, like warming dancing flames rising to the stars. We are almost there.


End file.
